Jamboree no place for out of control sledders Weekend Friday, April 7, 2017
Two weekends ago a person operating a snowmobile lost control and plowed into a Department of National Defence tent and display area at Long John Jamboree.
The tent was occupied at the time by armed forces personnel and tourists. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured but it doesn't take much of an imagination to consider the possible tragic outcomes had a child or adult been in direct line of impact.
This was a close call and it was only by chance that no one was seriously injured.
Details are scant at the moment while RCMP conduct an investigation into the incident but the sled was last registered to a local tourism operator who declined the opportunity to clarify his company's involvement in the incident.
Tourists and tourism are one the city's greatest assets. It's incumbent on tourism operators to ensure the safety of all people and to put restrictions on activities that could mar otherwise wonderful events, not to mention the possibility of maiming or killing event goers.
Bruce Hewlko, president of the Great Slave Snowmobile Association, quite reasonably asked members and all sledders to avoid the congestion around the Snowking snow castle during the Long John Jamboree weekend. It is unfortunate that not all heeded the call.
With thousands of square kilometres of ridable lakes and terrain in the Yellowknife area, he was not out of line to ask snowmobilers to give the festival grounds a wide berth. The jam-packed Long John Jamboree site is not the place for an inexperienced rider to learn how to handle a sled. Modern machines are built for speed. They go from a standstill to high speed in the blink of an eye, and require a generous safety buffer zone to comfortably learn to control.
Even if it turns out after the RCMP investigation concludes that the rider wasn't inexperienced, it would just go to show that accidents can happen whenever sleds are operated among large crowds of people who are not necessarily on the lookout for random, out-of-control snowmobiles.
Nobody likes to see piles of rules and restrictions damper the fun but if common sense isn't enough to control behaviour, snowmobiling by the general public needs to be formally excluded from within or near future winter festivals on the lake.
Kudos for dealing with water bills Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, April 7, 2017
When it comes to city issues, economic growth and diversification tends to be at the top of the list.
Yellowknife government and residents want businesses to come here and flourish. The more business there is, the better the economy does.
This is why it was so shocking to hear that in December of last year, Old Town businesses got a nasty surprise on their water bills - suddenly, the fee per litre went up five-fold once they reached a threshold of 2,730 litres in a month. For Fletcher and Miranda Stevens who own NWT Brewing, that meant their water bills skyrocketed by 300 per cent. John Doody, co-owner of Bayside Bed & Breakfast, saw his water bill double. These businesses brought their bills back to city hall, complaining the sudden hike was unsustainable. Yeah, no doubt.
City administration and council definitely deserve a pat on the back for responding to this issue and suggesting a refund. That said, administration is only suggesting refunds back to January, despite the problem starting in December.
Apparently, according to administration, it would be a headache to refund money collected in 2016, as the city is in the midst of an audit for that year. It probably is a headache but it surely is an even bigger headache for overcharged businesses to only be partially compensated because it's inconvenient.
So, as Coun. Julian Morse says, "If people have paid a bill that council has decided is an unfair bill, I think we should make sure we're refunding that money."
Amen to that.
Student truancy not only a school problemInuvik Drum - Thursday, April 6, 2016
Liz Adams has been working in Inuvik's school system for more than 20 years, and she admittedly doesn't have many solutions for chronic attendance problems.
It gets worse when the sun stays out and school nears its finish following spring break, teachers say.
East Three School staff are constantly coming up with games and fun ways to experience school. In the confines of the public schooling system, they're doing about all they can.
Whether everyone agrees the curricula of public school is optimal or not, it's certainly good practice for showing up to work on time and getting used to the 40-hour work week.
Beyond many of the specific skills school teaches, work ethic and delayed gratification are two of the most important characteristics people need to learn, no matter what career they go into.
Considering the difference between the traditional way of life in this region with that of urban southern Canada, it can be easy to conclude the lack of buy-in among students and families has to do with the transitional period this region is in.
On one hand there is the culture of living on the land, and on the other the modern institutionalized systems of education and employment.
But these don't need to be mutually exclusive, and the same attributes that make people successful anywhere are shown in both.
A traditional seal hunter knows about delayed gratification and the ability to work hard in the present to set up a bounty in the future.
Similarly, there was no lack of work ethic that propelled the aboriginal groups in the area to survive and thrive in what many consider a brutal environment.
Ultimately, the lack of economic opportunities here and the rise in welfare rates has to be considered a contributing factor to lackluster enthusiasm for school.
There are many forms of welfare and some are more justifiable than others, but the danger with all of them is creating the incentive not to work. It's a balancing act all governments play and many programs get rather elaborate trying to reach it.
From 2006 to 2015, the monthly average of beneficiaries of income assistance has risen from 155 to 254 in Inuvik, while the monthly average of cases has increased from 85 to 156, according to Stats NWT.
Income assistance payments in that same time frame have more than doubled, while the employment rate has dropped.
Welfare, at its worst, is a self-perpetuating cycle that destroys incentive to work. At its best, it is a brief bounce off the safety net and hand up to those most truly in need.
That's one side of the coin. The other might be an even larger question: how else can one make money in this sleepy economy?
If people cannot see opportunities, they have no incentive to better themselves and their families.
Fortunately, the digital age means people are less dependent on location than ever to pursue their dreams.
Poor school attendance is symptomatic of a bigger problem than sunny nights being fun times to play. Putting that problem completely on the school system is unfair.
No shoes, no bra, no dignityYellowknifer - Wednesday, April 5, 2017
How degrading it must be to have to face a judge without shoes on or a bra.
For some reason, this is the just the way it's done in Yellowknife. According to lawyers, advocates and people within the court system, RCMP have made a habit of taking away shoes and bras from prisoners before their court appearances.
In fact, according to Robert Abel, who has been in and out of the court system since the 1980s, there hasn't been a time he has ever been allowed to keep his shoes on in a Yellowknife courtroom.
Could it be a security issue? Maybe, but considering how prisoners have access to these same items in North Slave Correctional Centre cells, that doesn't really make any sense.
Either way, Kim Schofield, solicitor general of the Department of Justice, said it's not normal practice or policy, despite the fact it seemingly has become informal practice.
Now, the RCMP in the Northwest Territories is contracted by the Department of Justice to deliver policing services. This means the territorial government pays for RCMP to be here, and to deliver a certain level of service.
If the RCMP is making its own policy for prisoner transport unbeknownst to the department, it is the department's responsibility to make sure that changes. In some cases, with some particular prisoners, there might be legitimate security issue that forces the RCMP to take away these items during transport to the courthouse. But the people for whom it is not a security issue - but happening anyway -- it definitely is a human-rights issue.
As Abel himself says, appearing before a judge without basic clothing items makes those who are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty look like convicts.
"You're already guilty," he told Yellowknifer about how it feels to be in that situation.
If the RCMP isn't going to take a step back and consider the necessity before stripping prisoners of their shoes and bras, it's imperative on the Department of Justice to make sure it happens. Schofield tells Yellowknifer this is something the department plans to do. According to Abel, this practice has been happening since the '80s, making the department embarrassingly late to the party.
But better late than never.
Transparency integral to safety infoYellowknifer - Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Ratings are not just for television shows but when it comes to road safety the idea is the same.
Problem is, unlike in Alberta or Ontario, safety ratings on transport trucks are not publicly available in the Northwest Territories, even though the Department of Transportation has been apparently monitoring that information since 1990.
A road safety plan published on the department's website states the safety ratings are public but when pressed by Yellowknifer, the department admitted that claim was likely made in error.
Until this winter, complaints on transport carrier safety have been few and far between but a recent spate of highway accidents and fires involving transport trucks heading to the diamond mines has shaken public confidence.
The snafu with the undisclosed safety ratings has clearly embarrassed the department. Officials now say they are taking steps with a "goal" to making the ratings public. It reported that all 375 carrier companies currently operating in the territory have "satisfactory" rating, the highest rating achievable.
That's good to know but it's troubling that the department is already hedging, saying it presently doesn't have the authority to make the ratings public.
Female debacle and Canadian hopes in the world of hockeyEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, April 5, 2017
The hockey world avoided an extremely embarrassing moment when U.S.A. Hockey struck an 11th-hour deal with its Team U.S.A. female players to avoid a boycott of the world championships lastweek.
We can leave all the equality arguments outside the world of hockey alone for the time being because, when it comes to equality, there is no comparison between the Americans' female and male national squads.
The female teams have won substantially more medals than their male counterparts.
One can only imagine what could have transpired at the IIHF world championships had the defending gold medalists indeed boycotted the event, or been replaced by a bunch of beer league replacement players (scabs by any other name) as threatened by U.S.A. Hockey. The reason for the dispute was the female players asking U.S.A. Hockey for a justifiable raise to the meager pittance of $1,000 a month that was only paid to them for the six months preceding the Olympics.
American NHL teams, albeit featuring numerous Canadian and international players, have taken over the Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens beat the L.A. Kings in the 1992-93 Cup final - the last time a team North of the border took Lord Stanley home in recent times.
It has been a completely different story on the international stage, where Team Canada has been able to (and continues to) rack up gold medals in everything from the Spengler Cup to the world hockey championships, the reinvented Canada Cup and the Winter Olympics.
The spat between the female players and U.S.A. Hockey was as much about respect for the players as it was the monetary increase.
A more than valid consideration, considering how the girls have vastly outplayed the boys of their nation during recent decades.
So what went wrong for the men's team in the U.S.A. program?
Well, for starters, the pride associated with wearing the Team U.S.A. colours has still not completely recovered from the abysmal behaviour displayed by the American players at the Sochi Olympics.
Secondly, the American brain trust overestimated the strength of their overall program due to the success it briefly enjoyed when the hockey planets aligned and the right group of players were all wearing red, white and blue for a few years.
This is a fairly common pitfall the female team has managed to avoid Also, while the competitive factor in female hockey has stalled, leaving Team Canada and Team U.S.A. to battle for supremacy in every female tournament you can name that includes the two hockey superpowers, the same has not been true on the men's side.
The biggest problem with the Canadian hockey world is that it only takes two or three premier international events without a gold medal, and the country starts screaming in anguish and asking what's gone wrong with our game?
It's a scenario that's played out over-and-over again and, unfortunately, has led to knee-jerk reactions on more than one occasion that actually set our game back a number of years.
Hopefully, the foul odor left behind by U.S.A. Hockey's childish response to a legitimate request by its female players will fade away and not have the female program take the same hit to its pride factor that the Sochi Olympics had on the men's side.
No hope for studentsNorthwest Territories/News North - Monday, April 3, 2017
It's said that Graham Nash wrote 'Teach Your Children' - a song about the often difficult relationship he had with his father, who spent time in prison.
It's amazing how some songs stand the test of time and can help us understand issues of the day.
As a society in the NWT, people must work extra hard in ensuring they provide the best and most effective education possible for today's children, for if they have indigenous backgrounds, they are very likely dealing with parents struggling with their own demons.
Now certainly it's not every family who struggles with the lingering trauma of Canada's residential school system but others have real-time issues of poverty and marital breakdown.
So as we have seen in the mountain of numbers issued of late, the children aren't doing well.
They tested poorly across the NWT, in small and large centres and generated news story headlines in News/North such as these: "Dismal student scores show need for fix," Feb. 20; "Achievement test scores dismal," March 20; and "Assessments missed, flubbed," March 27.
How can an education department, brimming to the rim with staff, accept the findings of recent studies? How can Education Minister Alfred Moses keep his portfolio in the face of such failure? (And don't get us started, Minister Moses, on the junior kindergarten mess or concession made to the teachers in the latest contract.)
As we've reported in News/North in recent weeks, students in communities across the territory are falling desperately behind in math and English, according to the latest Alberta Achievement Test (AAT) scores.
For example, just 10.6 per cent of Grade 6 students in the communities met an acceptable math standard during the 2015-16 academic year, according to AAT results calculated as a percentage of total enrolment. In Grade 9, only 11.2 per cent of those students met the benchmark for math.
Then there is the absenteeism rate. Now there's an area where the territory excels. Unfortunately.
And again, it's the smaller communities that suffer the most.
On average, school attendance was lower in small communities last year than in regional centres and Yellowknife. For example, just 22 per cent of Grade 6 students in the Deh Cho took the language arts portion of the mandatory Alberta Achievement Tests in 2016, according to Dehcho Divisional Education Council superintendent Terry Jaffray.
There are two main reasons for low attendance levels. Jaffray said some students are absent while others may be excused from taking the test if they are two or more years behind in school.
This is just shameful.
So what is the NWT doing about the problem it has let fester for so, so long?
Well, the low achievement rates have encouraged the education department to undergo an "education renewal."
It involves the introduction of junior kindergarten across the territory this year, a 10-year framework to improve early childhood development and pilot programs to better engage students.
We suggest the first thing the GNWT needs to do is to start recruiting more teachers.
A lot more teachers. And pay them well enough to retain them in the smaller communities, which are struggling more than the regional centres.
There needs to be more staff around to make sure kids get to school, are engaged when they are there and actually absorb enough key concepts and language skills so they are able to enter the workforce or go on to post-secondary education.
Failure to do so will result in higher health-care costs, more addictions, higher justice costs, and generally just a generation of adults who are lost.
And for indigenous families, when they see their kids haven't been able to follow their dreams, it will only make for more pain and heartache.
Let Nunavummiut stay home in old ageNunavut/News North - Monday, April 3, 2017
March saw the opening of Cambridge Bay's long-term care facility, a home for eight people who would otherwise be in care outside of the community.
It's about time but as astronaut Neil Armstrong said, "That's one small step...".
Far too many Nunavummiut are in care or custody outside of their home communities, regions, and even the territory. We're including about 60 foster children and 45 inmates who can't be accommodated in Nunavut.
Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20, yet here we are repeating the past with orphaned, disabled, convicted, and elderly Nunavummiut sent away, usually to Iqaluit, Yellowknife, or down south.
Like those sent to residential schools and sanitariums for tuberculosis treatment, people spending months, years and lifetimes away from home have little hope of maintaining their culture or language. How can they heal and reintegrate?
Or worse, how many will share the fate of the young man who died while in foster care after the Iqaluit children's group home narrowed the age range to his exclusion?
It was illuminating to read Cambridge Bay Mayor Jeannie Ehaloak note how her aunt would rather risk going without care to be at home rather than be in Iqaluit, where her dialect is not spoken.
So we praise the opening of the new beds in Cambridge Bay.
It's great to see 17 new jobs created in the hamlet as a result.
Nunavut's Makigiarvik minimum security facility, which will be featured on national TV this week, is another good example.
These men are benefitting from on-the-land programming and the opportunity to develop traditional skills, such as carving.
They also get to be entrepreneurs weekly by selling their carvings at the facility.
But there's so much work to do to finish the job.
Renovating the Baffin Correctional Centre (BCC) will be a giant leap, as Nunavummiut held outside of the territory need to be closer to home. Everyone can acknowledge an upgrade at that facility is long overdue.
Hopefully the court system will speed up, too, so that those awaiting trial at BCC can get justice in a timely fashion.
Hopefully, too, money can be found to bring foster children and those with disabilities back home to Nunavut, and to bring more long-term care beds so elders can either be in their own communities or at least within a reasonable distance.
It will take a major investment to make this dream possible.
But it's important to remember that a society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable.
